An enlightening experience...

In striving for an zero energy home, once your heating and cooling load has been reduced through a tight, well insulated house envelope and geothermal heating/cooling system, your appliances and lighting become a proportionally more significant issue. In looking to reduce lighting energy demands, the use of more energy efficient, long lasting CFLs and LEDs becomes paramount. In recently searching for lighting fixtures designed specifically for these types of bulbs, we found the local "pickings" to be sparse and expensive. Searching online was somewhat more successful, with sites like arcadianlighting.com, lightingdirect.com and tcpi.com offering more choice of fixtures, and maxlite.com, earthbulb.com, creelighting.com, junolightinggroup.com, superbrightleds.com and edgelighting.com offering access to quality bulbs at reasonable prices. We have decided to primarily go with CFLs in conventional CFL-compatible (read: hides the bulb) fixtures, while using longer lasting but more expensive LEDs in key recessed lighting and undercabinet locations. We plan to use cooler color bulbs (5000K)in closets and dressing areas, where their greater accuracy is useful. In the remaining areas, we will be using warmer bulbs (2700K) bulbs for their flattering glow. Part of being a successful "early adopter" is having a high frustration tolerance and a healthy dose of initiative, imagination and stubbornness. It is sometimes tempting to simply yield to the easy, available and less immediately expensive answer, but that will rarely get you to your goal. Plus we plan to enjoy the projected 34 years of use of those little LEDs.